I was disgusted after IPL 2012: Virat Kohli on what triggered his fitness transformation

Virat Kohli has reached a level in his cricketing career where trying to describe him would mean risking being repetitive in the use of adjectives. Every time he goes out to bat, there is a sense of invincibility, dominance, and confidence. However, that hasn’t happened overnight, and there have been many events throughout the journey that has sculpted the man.

Speaking to Mayank Agarwal on the show ‘Open nets with Mayank’, Virat revealed the secret to his fitness and the beginning of the journey to being one of the fittest sportspersons on the planet. Virat recalled feelings from 2012, post the IPL, which he reckons changed his outlook on fitness. “2012 IPL, came back home, saw myself, I was disgusted. I just wanted to change everything about myself,” he said when asked about what brought about the transformation. 

Virat, back in 2012 says he realized that he was being left behind when compared to international standards, and the champion attitude he had meant he couldn’t let that happen. “Also to do with the fact that I saw how the dynamics of cricket around the world were changing rapidly, and how I felt we were far behind in terms of being at the same intensity levels as other teams,” he said. They were moving far ahead in terms of fitness levels, the ability to bring that intensity every session, every spell, every hour of batting; even in fielding sessions, stopping that one important run, or having that magical runout. They were just able to do it with so much regularity, that we were not able to keep up with that. So, that really bothered me, what can we do to change that particular process.”

The genius of the man lies in the fact that he realized very soon that he has to set an example if he needed to see a change in the team. “That had to start at an individual level first, and that realization came to me after that iPL season of 2012 where I was just eating anything in front of me. I would finish, in ITC Gardenia where we used to stay, they had that packet of Eclairs toffees, and they would refill the minibar every time, and I would finish a pack in say, four-five days’ time, that was a pack of forty toffees. That was my diet at that time. I was just eating like a mad person because, again, that phase happened where I got all the success, and everything was going well, and I went into IPL saying ‘I’m going to dominate’, and things didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t process that well,” Virat acknowledged about the time when he probably let success get to his head.

However, things soon took a turn for the better, as the India and RCB skipper recalls, "Things happened, I did not appreciate and respect it immediately, I was thrown back down, then I went back home, realized that I need to change everything about the way I’m preparing, I’m thinking, changed it from next day onwards when I came back home. From then on my whole outlook towards how I want to prepare totally changed.”